The command rang clearly in my ears, even as I jolted awake to a sitting position.

“Hey,” Zayda fussed sleepily. “Quit moving.”

Sometime during the night she had come out from the safety of her air vent to sleep curled against my side. I shook my head. It seemed so out of character for her. Then I remembered a cool touch in the middle of dreams of fire.

Maybe I just didn't know her well enough to know what was really in character at all.

The stripe on my cuff still glowed green, fractionally brighter than it had during the sleep. How long would it take to shade to yellow without restocking my points?

I reached down to where Zayda had curled up on herself and lightly touched her shoulder. “It's morning. Let's go see if we can get your cuff sorted.”

Her eyes flew open as if she had only been resting, then I could almost see the list scroll in her mind, boxes ready to be checked.

“We should get you to the farm first.” She sat up and began to rebraid her hair.

“Nothing doing.” After the events of last night, I was going to see her safely to the clinic, no matter what she said. “You can give me directions from the clinic. Until you get that thing fixed, you need to stay with people you trust.”

Zayda huffed, but didn't argue. Back onto the main level, she stopped suddenly. “There's no point in me going to the mess, but you've got to be hungry.”

I shrugged. “I think my stomach would consider it a favor if I missed one of those meal packs. Besides, if I’m going to be on some sort of a farm, there's got to be snacks around, right?”

She turned, mouth set and grim. “Don't try to steal the product. Seriously. Having a source of fresh grown food is one of the things that's made Orem Station so rich. The only person I've heard of who tried swiping some for himself ended up losing points immediately, almost got beaten to death.”

Her wide eyes held just a touch of fear.

“I promise, I'll keep my fingers out of the cookie jar,” I joked.

“Cookie jar? What the hell is a cookie jar?”

I stopped, shook my head. “No idea.” I had a flash, an image of an older woman, scolding me and…my brothers? Then it was gone again.

“Must've been something somebody told me when I was growing up. I don't remember now.”

Zayda tucked her hand around the crook of my elbow and squeezed my arm. “Never mind, it's a perfectly reasonable phrase. I'll try to use it myself.”

I used my cuff to trigger the doors into the clinic and Zayda slipped inside alone. I stuck my foot on the track to keep it from closing immediately.

She looked around briefly. “Denon's not in yet, no surprise. I can use his passcode to log into the comms, see if I can figure out what's wrong with my cuff.”

I didn't like leaving her there, but she'd shown she was a competent fighter, and she had more than a small interest in her personal safety. So I fought down my instincts and forced a grin. “You have fun with that. I'll see if I can get a little hurt and come check on you during the day.”

She smiled and returned, “You are an odd, odd man. But thank you.”

The door slid closed behind me and I headed through the labyrinth of corridors down to the level called the farm.

Even though Zayda had told me the satellite raised enough food for the needs of the station below, as well as for export to this section of the Fringe, I was surprised at the complexity of the system before me.

It must take up an entire floor of the satellite, trays stacked in racks almost to the ceiling, soft light coming from beneath each tray to shine on the plants beneath. I could hear the faint sound of water, then noticed a network of tubes connecting each of the trays.

As I took it all in, a battered ’bot rolled down one of the pathways. Its screen was set for telepresence, but the image was grayed out, unrecognizable. If there had ever been anyone at the other end, it was more likely that now the ’bot had simply been programmed to greet and assign workers as efficiently as possible.

“New arrival?” a voice crackled from the speakers.

“Yep, someone told me to come down here and make myself useful.”

“There's plenty to do.” It rolled back the way it had come from. “Follow me.”

As we went through the narrow paths between the racks, the ’bot recited the variety of tasks needed to keep the operation running.

“Should be self-sustaining, even down to the harvest, but machinery hasn't been updated in years. Nutrient lines get clogged, the compost mixer broke down too long ago to remember, and the rack loader works at about half capacity.”

The ’bot rotated its top half towards me, continuing to roll on, it's blank screen giving me the eerie feeling of being sized up.

“You're too big to be of any use trailing the tubes, so loading and mixing compost it’ll be.”

Other men and women had started filtering in, taking up their tasks with little chatter. “Makes no difference to me, as long as I'm useful.”

A noise escaped the ’bot, enough like a snort that I wondered how much latitude the AI it housed had been given.

“Helpful attitude from the beginning. We don't see much of that around here.” It turned another corner, out from the rows of growing racks, into a more open, industrial- looking area. “Don't cause trouble. This is your life now.”

I stopped. “’My life now’? I’m just up here like everyone else, for the terms of my sentence.” Which I didn’t remember, but I was pretty sure that that’s how prison worked, right?

The ’bot didn't pause. “Who told you that? Once you’re here, you stay. At least, you better hope you stay.”

Well, that was going to put a crimp in my plans. I spent the morning stirring piles of compost with two other surly looking men. They weren't particularly forthcoming when I tried to make small talk, or even direct questions.

The job required that we stand waist deep in a vast metal half-cylinder, stirring and churning half-rotted remnants into sludge. We worked around the tines of the huge mechanical forks that still hung from beams overhead.

I looked at the broken cables leading through the machinery. “What are the chances those things start up while we're in here?” I asked.

The bald guy, whose name I still hadn't gotten, shrugged. “You move fast. Most of the time, the machinery stays dormant. Every now and then it seems to get a little kick, though.” He grinned, not in a particularly friendly way. “Why do you think there was an opening on the unit?”

Well. That was reassuring. We stirred and turned and churned the stinking mass until the bell rang for a break.

The three of us climbed the ladder out of the vat and headed to rinsing tubes. As we pulled our uniforms back on, I noticed that both men had the same black mark below their ears as the man who had approached me in the men's dorm last night.

“What's that about?” I asked.

The bald guy crossed his arms. “Marks us as Skulls, man. I'm surprised Jado hasn't talked to you already. You’re big enough, you'd be an asset.”

I thought back. “Tall guy? Blond? He might've tried to last night, but I had stuff going on.”

The other one, skinny with shifty eyes, finally spoke up. “You don't want to blow off Jado. The Skulls are the strongest gang up here, you can’t go it alone.”

I nodded, and then remembered what the ’bot had said earlier that morning. “But what about when you go back to the station? Do you want a mark like that where everyone can see that you did time?”

They both looked at me with something in between shock and amusement on their faces. “Man, the only way out of here is when the black ghosts come for you.”

We stood in line with the others to get our mid-shift rations, my apparently stupid questions having finally done the trick to break the ice.

I had promised to get up to the clinic and Zayda, but this sounded like information we needed.

“Black ghosts,” I continued after we got our trays. “Sounds like some sort of boogeyman, stories to keep us in line.”

“No way.” Now that he had an audience, the shifty looking one seemed more than happy to spread the story. “I've seen them, just the once, but it was enough. They only come at night, that's why curfew is such a big thing.”

“The governor doesn't want anyone seeing those crazy fuckers.” He shuddered, seemed genuinely rattled. “Wish I hadn't. Black uniforms, black gloves - and man, they don't have faces!”

Well, that wasn't going to be as helpful as I'd hoped. Apparently someone had found a way to stay hopped up even here. Maybe I should ask if he'd share his stash with Gozer.